Become What You Are

Existential development requires you to move beyond physical needs and mental concepts. In that space, you begin to identify yourself as what you are before motion and value judgment. Holding onto this state, even as the world turns on its own axis all around you, is how you mature from your childish beginnings to the potential adult that was always within you. Maturity makes you a master of your awareness and responses. You cease to be a slave to your conditioning.

Underneath everything you ever experience lies the subtle layer of internalized processes. It supports every thought and emotion, but it is easy to overlook and miss its importance. An immature mind remains distracted from itself in an endless cycle of externally driven motion. Learn to stay grounded in the unchanging part of what you are, regardless of what problems you encounter. Build your armor against interference, or you will never know yourself.

The journey of heroic maturity climaxes in the confrontation of one’s deepest fears, even literal death, and emerging as a truer version of oneself. You must, sooner or later, face the pieces of yourself you have buried. It will hurt when you face them. It will hurt when you separate from that to which you are most attached. Emotional release relieves you when the separation is complete. Then you have the space to rebuild yourself better than you were before.

Operating as your mature self, you will recognize the difference between the reality of a thing and the common story told about it. You will see the limits of the immature person you spent your life believing you were, and you will be ready to abandon the limits the world forced on you. You will invest yourself in uncertain futures. You will survive the emotional aftermath of deep failure. You will learn to create a world for you as what you are when you fully express yourself.

This is the hero’s journey that is repeated over and over throughout your life with each unfamiliar challenge. When you can recognize challenges for what they are, merely your unconscious inability to adapt to the new conditions, you are then mature enough to focus on changing yourself before changing the world. That maturity is the apex where your pride meets your humility, and you maintain a confident, yet grounded, awareness of yourself. Once obtained, maturity will never leave you.

The hero of the story is the one who can push the limits of the conceptual world he inhabited when we began his journey. His physical exploits are inconsequential compared with how he changes within the domain of his own mind. External changes come and go, but inside he can accumulate unlimited progress. His journey is complete when he arrives at a new version of himself. Then, he spreads his influence onto the conceptual limits of everyone he knows.

As you delve further and deeper into the struggles of your existence, you are going to rely less on the events that happen to you to determine your actions. You will live less responsively and more proactively. The motivation behind your actions will originate from core values and principled axioms, not the immediate satiation of discomfort. You will know deeper suffering and deeper reward in the pursuit of your priorities.

You will know yourself completely when you embrace the middle ground between abundance and scarcity. You will explore how indulgence and abstinence play into your pursuit of reward. You will see yourself under each the extremes of each set of conditions. Your lows and your highs will be directly connected. Knowing what you are capable of, you will maturely navigate the middle ground of your limits to become the master of yourself.

You are more internally grounded through the breadth of your experiences. You appreciate every win and tolerate delays to your gratification. A well-tested individual peers into the future of his wants and his actions. He can wait, patiently, for the time to make a desired reality happen. The immature and underdeveloped individual has no tolerance the trials of time. Discomfort easily overtakes them. The immature individual, therefore, lacks any ability to accomplish great things.

You have survived the trials of meeting yourself. Now you will begin to acquire the tools and the relationships that empower you to be that person in every regard.

Gregory Diehl left California at 18 to explore our world and find himself. He has lived and worked in 45 countries so far, offering straightforward solutions to seekers of honest advice and compassionate support in the development of their identities. His first book, Brand Identity Breakthrough, is an Amazon business bestseller. His new book, Travel As Transformation, chronicles the personal evolution worldwide exploration has brought to him and others. Find him at: http://gregorydiehl.net/